


A Flash of Yellow

by TheReviewess



Series: Heroics Run In The Family [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Elven Alienages, Letters, Named Mahariel (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 06:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16012691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheReviewess/pseuds/TheReviewess
Summary: On slow days, Merrill likes to sit up in the branches of the great tree in the Alienage and let her mind wander. On this day, her mind wanders back to her childhood, and back to her childhood friend.





	A Flash of Yellow

On days when Merrill found herself with free time, or when she just wanted to get away, she often liked to climb the sturdy branches of the great tree in the Alienage and sit there, looking over her new home in Kirkwall and watching the young elf children play below. A cool breeze always seemed to take her back to her own childhood. To a time where she was new to a clan, but a small redheaded elf took her in and made friends with her.

She remembered as they would race through the forest, and have picnics next to small ponds, giggling as the water lapped at their feet. Merrill smiled as she remey the countless hours the two wasted while sneaking out of camp and swimming.

Even now, Merrill remembered the little elf scaling the Sylvans with the skill of a hunter, despite her young age. It was from this elf where Merrill learned her own skills in climbing.

_“Hurry!” Merrill heard from above, “or they're gonna see you!”_

_“I'm going as fast as I can!” A younger Merrill complained. While she could climb, and had gotten better at it according to the calluses on her hands and feet, her companion was always a few branches above her. Her fellow elf darted through the forest and scaled trees with the skill and grace one would expect from the Dalish._

_By the time they found themselves perched at the top of the Sylvan, her companion giggled. Below, the Keeper, and young Tamlen were scouring the forest looking for them._

_“We shouldn't be hiding from them! The Keeper will be mad at us!” Merrill whispered urgently._

_“We're already in trouble. Why not make it fun?”_

_Merrill just sighed. There was no arguing with her stubborn friend._

_“You know how I know that the Keeper never learned to hunt?”_

_“How?” Merrill whispered back, curious how the girl came to that assumption._

_“She never looks up.” Her friend whispered back. “And Tamlen wants to be a hunter, but even he never looks up too! If he can't remember that, what good of a hunter will he be?”_

_“You’ll make a better hunter than Tamlen,” Merrill assured the elf. Even now, Merrill could see her tiny body poised just right. If the Keeper and Tamlen had been her prey, and had the girl had a bow, Merrill had no doubt the two would have been caught unaware._

_“Of course I will. I gotta make up for not being magic any how.” The elf muttered with a sour tone. “Can't be useless.”_

_“You won't be useless.” Merrill assured her._

_And she certainly wasn’t useless. The girl caused the clan a lot of grief, often getting into fights, or other sort of trouble, but Merrill was convinced that she would make up for everything in the end. She’d do the clan proud._

A flash of yellow caught Merrill’s attention. The children below had taken a yellow dress off of a clothesline and were racing about, letting it flutter in the wind, like a cape. It made Merrill smile.

Sighing, she realized that she had been caught up in her thoughts again, so she clambered down the tree with ease, before heading to her own house.

On the table sat a letter. Merrill had yet to open it, but the seal told her who it was from.

The Grey Wardens.

Aerinwyn Mahariel.

Her little redheaded friend.

It wasn’t the first correspondence that the woman sent to Merrill, and the elf doubted it would be the last. Like all her other letters, Merrill had hidden them away, forcing herself not to look at them, in hopes that she could forget about it, and maybe Mahariel would stop writing. In her last encounter with Mahariel, the elf had given her strict instructions. And Merrill had, inevitably, botched that. So, when the first if Mahariel’s correspondence had arrived from Denerim, the former First had been apprehensive to say the least.

She picked up the letter, again, her thumb ready to break the seal. The elf found herself hesitating again. Every time she thought she could open the letter, is she always started hesitating. She knew she should just throw it in a drawer with all the other letters and be done with them, but it grew harder with every letter Mahariel sent. To be honest, Merrill had forgotten how insistent and stubborn Mahariel could be.

She also wondered where Mahariel learned to write, and so nicely, because last Merrill knew, Mahariel, like most hunters, couldn’t read or write. The older ones knew their letters and could sometimes read, but mostly that was reserved for Keepers and their First and Seconds.

“Merrill?” The familiar voice of Hawke came room the other side of her door.

As the door opened, Merrill threw the letter back on the table, covering it with her hands just in time to see Hawke swing the door open.

“Hawke!” Merrill replied in a faux cheery voice. It was just like Hawke to distract her from her own troubles. “What brings you here? Oh goodness, my house is such a mess! I’m so sorry. I swear it’s clean sometimes…”

“Merrill. I received the strangest of letters today,” Hawke replied, walking inside and closing the door. Merrill could see that she was guarded, and nervous about something. Probably about her, Merrill realized. “And your house is fine. Honestly. It’s always fine.”

“What kind of letter?” Merrill asked, her hands burning where Mahariel’s letter rested.

“There wasn’t a name,” Hawke started off, “it just said… well, here. You read it.” The woman slid a simple message across the table that read:

 _Make Merrill answer her fucking mail._  
_For fuck sake.  
_ _Thanks._

“Oh…” That was definitely Mahariel. Merrill would bet her life on it. The handwriting also matched the handwriting on the letters that Merrill had accumulated.

“So you know who this is?” Hawke asked, seeming a little less panicked now.  

“I have my suspicions…” Merrill replied, not wanting to say anymore that that.

Unfortunately, Hawke had this ability to give her one look and Merrill was spilling her guts without realizing it. Like now.

“Well. I think it might be Mahariel. She’s written about five times now and I haven’t opened anything because I don’t think I can live with her hating me. And I have no idea who is writing these, because she never learned to write, or even read and I-”

“Wait. The Hero of Ferelden is _writing_ to you?” Hawke asked. “You know her?”

“We were good friends, Hawke. Have I not mentioned that?”

“You’ve mentioned her a few times but not much more than that. Not that I think you’re lying, but you’ve never gone into detail about your relationship. I didn't realize you were good enough friends to have her _writing_ you.”

“Oh… Well yes. We used to play together as children. We were quite good friends, and she was my first friend, actually... Though she probably hates me now and probably why she’s writing me. And she was probably writing you to get me to answer my mail. She’s very stubborn. Sorry about that.”

Hawke just sat back, a little stunned for a moment. After all, it wasn’t every day that you realize your friend was literally best friends with the person who saved the world.

“Wait? So why does she hate you?”

Did she say that? Oh drat. Merrill did not mean to say that. The things that Hawke made her do without realizing.

“She asked me to do something for her, and, well I failed. Miserably actually. She gave me very strict instructions, and told me not to fail her. She needed me…” Merrill replied, now sitting down in a chair. She placed her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. “And I failed, like usual. She probably just wants to yell at me, and the best she can do is send me letters about how much she hates me…”

Hawke was silent, but then she wandered around the table and crouched down beside Merrill. “Now I don’t know her, but it seems to me like the Hero of Ferelden wouldn’t just write a random person to get you to open your mail just so she could yell at you.” Hawke told her. “That seems like a kind of thing a person would do when they just want to hear from their friend.”

Merrill looked over to Hawke, “you think so?”

“Well, that’s what I would do.” Hawke replied, now standing back up. “I imagine she’s a busy lady. I don’t think she would have the time to write you just to tell you that she hates you. I bet she just wants to make sure you’re okay. That’s what I’d do.”

Merrill smiled a little, perhaps there was hope. “Maybe.” Merrill said, looking down at the letter.  Her eyes darted over to the drawer with the other letters. Slowly she rose and pulled them out, bringing them back to the table.

“These letters will likely be the first any of us have heard from her…”

“All the more reason to open them!” Hawke replied with a smile. Upon seeing fear flash across the elf’s face, Hawke changed her statement, “later. Maybe not now.”

“I think that would be best…” Merrill said, looking at all the letters.

“Why don’t we go on a walk. You can tell me all about the Hero as a kid, and I can get great blackmail when I first meet her.” Hawke offered with a charming grin. “We can head down to get a drink. I’m sure Varric would love these stories, if you’re up for talking about them.”

Merrill sat their for a moment, then stood up. “You know, that sounds like a lovely idea, Hawke. It’s been awhile since I talked about her. I think I need this.”

“Then after you!” Hawke said with a smile opening the door.

Merrill started through the door, but then stopped in the doorway to look back at the letters.

“Are you alright?” Hawke asked quietly.

Merrill shook her head and quickly headed out the door. Hawke followed behind her and shut the door.

“I’m fine. Just thinking of the first story to tell,” Merrill replied with a small laugh.

“Well it better be something good!” Hawke demanded in a playful tone.

Outside, the children seemed to be amused by the yellow dress. A young girl had taken the sleeves and tied it around her neck and brandished a bent stick with a string on both ends, much like a bow. Merrill smiled as she saw the girl standing at the base of the massive tree. The child declared herself Aerinwyn Mahariel, vanquisher of Darkspawn and savior of the world, making Merrill laugh.

In that moment, Merrill was reminded of a story. “Of course. The Halla story!”

“Halla story?”

“Yes! The Halla story! There are quite a few little known facts about Mahariel. The first is that she is particularly good with animals, in this case, Halla. And she always got the Halla to come to her by singing to them. While the Keeper was not very good at singing, Mahariel was not bad.”

“Okay?”

“So Tamlen, Fenarel, Mahariel, and I were standing not too far from where the Halla were grazing when Mahariel came up with what she thought was the best idea ever…”

Those letter could wait.


End file.
